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Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

arstechnica.com

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Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#641

Post by dghlsakjg »

zerocount wrote: post #628
yumraj wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: So why are all the people who are trapped/kidnapped in the cars in the movies not able to come out and have to yell to have someone come and rescue them? That implies that there is no way to open the latch from inside and people, including me, may take that as the truth and not even try to find the latch. I for sure didn't know that there was a way.

It's too dark to search for it, so you'd have to already know where the latch is at. I didn't know about keyless trunks until my ex-wife needed a jump and the battery was in the trunk, which could only be opened electronically or with the 'latch.' Google to the rescue!

All of the inner latches I’ve seen are made of glow in the dark material.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#642

Post by bborud »

Toyota seems to have lost their way. They've been late to the EV game, they wasted a lot of time touting hydrogen as a solution, and now they seem to be dead set on screwing over their relationship with the customer.

Here in Norway the electrification of automobiles has come quite far, and one thing that is quite striking is that all these new brands keep popping up. Years ago I read a lot of papers on incumbents in the face of technological disruption. If you look at the last 100 or so years, only about 15% of incumbents manage to hold on to their dominant position in the face of technological disruption.

I wonder if Toyota is going to have a significant market share in 20-30 years. A lot of the decisions made by the top brass seem to indicate that they're reaching the end of the industrial life cycle.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#643

Post by garmaine »

taneq wrote: post #597
garmaine wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the conclusion of the movie. I remember because I hated it so much. It destroyed the story imho.

I thought in the movie it was cast as her choosing to accept it and cherishing the time they'd have left together? Maybe I missed the predestination theme (or maybe it was just implied... although you could say it's implied for any story involving travel or communication between different times.)

We’ll I certainly walked away with an understanding that it was all predestined, which annoyed me to no end because it felt like a ridiculous and meaningless cop out. But maybe I misread something that was actually more ambiguous?

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#644

Post by jopsen »

Loughla wrote: post #162
irrational wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or do without.

In terms of the remote start, yes, you can do without. But how long until BASIC functions become subscription service? Like electronically locking doors, or some other such nonsense? Once money finds a path, my belief is that the path gets widened.

> Once money finds a path, my belief is that the path gets widened

Maybe, but it does go the other way too... I used to pay per sms :)

Disruption can happen... with cars it'll probably happen when all cars are self driving, rented per trip, and yes, maybe we'll still spend more money on cars -- but we'll probably also use transportation more.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#645

Post by mlindner »

mauvehaus wrote: post #431
brokenmachine wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's too late now for her of course, but you can take the headrest off the seat and use the metal prongs to smash the windows to get out.

Having watched a burly firefighter take three good swings with an axe to bust out a window (to get to the hood release of an unattended car fire), I am extremely skeptical of this claim. Somebody on YouTube tested those emergency hammers and concluded they're basically useless. If you really want to break a tempered glass car window (I.e., any of them but the windshield), their recommendation was an automatic center…

> Having watched a burly firefighter take three good swings with an axe to bust out a window (to get to the hood release of an unattended car fire), I am extremely skeptical of this claim.

Wrong window. You're talking about the windshield which is a completely different type of glass than other windows.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#646

Post by mlindner »

kingcharles wrote: post #449
mauvehaus wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having watched a burly firefighter take three good swings with an axe to bust out a window (to get to the hood release of an unattended car fire), I am extremely skeptical of this claim. Somebody on YouTube tested those emergency hammers and concluded they're basically useless. If you really want to break a tempered glass car window (I.e., any of them but the windshield), their recommendation was an automatic center…

Watch this... this made me realize how tough car windows really are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L91_K-s4pMM

He's hitting the base of the window with a blunt object. You don't want a blunt object.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#647

Post by david-gpu »

edanm wrote: post #620
gonehome wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the movie implied this as well? I include Arrival alongside Children of Men as an example of a case where the movie is better than the book (and I'm a big Ted Chiang fan) - changing the daughter's death from a climbing accident to a disease was much better imo.

Funny how taste works - I feel the opposite. In the case of a disease, there's really nothing she can do, and iirc the film implies the hard choice here was to decide to have a child even knowing that will die. In the car of an accident, there is the feeling that she could literally have prevented her daughter's death by preventing the accident, but "chooses" not to. The free will implications of that are much more i…

> the hard choice here was to decide to have a child even knowing that [they] will die

Knowing that my children will suffer and die is the main reason why I didn't want to have any. Now I have two.

Funnily, it's the same reason my own mother didn't want to have kids either. Yet, here we are. I suspect it is a pretty common feeling.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#648

Post by jopsen »

nicce wrote: post #509
Animats wrote: post #214

Stellantis (the current owner of Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge/etc) has announced that they hope to get $22 billion a year from their customers through post-sale service charges.[1] “Software will improve our business model, disconnecting hardware from software ... shifting the center of gravity of our business,” Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said Tuesday during the company’s “Software Day.” Tavares said profit margins for tho…

This is really bothering. How many of these subscriptions actually will finally increase value for the customer? Without intentionally starting to lock features and enable them later on with payments. Some legistlation is quickly needed.

Time to start a GNU Automobile project? :)

But yes, in a future where software is the most complicated part of a car, maybe that's what we'll be paying for.

But, IMO then there should also be competition on the software side.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#650

Post by vbezhenar »

yumraj wrote: post #495
notJim wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also in the "too late" vein, at least in the US, I believe cars are still required to have a latch to open the trunk from the inside. Not sure if other countries have these.

Serious question: So why are all the people who are trapped/kidnapped in the cars in the movies not able to come out and have to yell to have someone come and rescue them? That implies that there is no way to open the latch from inside and people, including me, may take that as the truth and not even try to find the latch. I for sure didn't know that there was a way.

I don't know about US, but in my country many cars (most?) are equipped with child safety switches for back doors. It's accessible when door is open (it's on door's inner edge) and if it's locked, you can't open door inside. It's needed to prevent children from accidentally opening doors, but you can use this feature for kidnapping purposes.

Of course you can always open front doors.

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